6 Best Online Time Clock Software for Small Businesses (In-Depth Look)

6 Best Online Time Clock Software for Small Businesses (In-Depth Look)


Traditional employee time-tracking methods are becoming outdated and do not provide the ease and efficiency that many small businesses need.

This article describes how a dedicated online time clock software for small businesses, such as Buddy Punch, can help you in more ways than one. This includes:

  1. Increased employee accountability. Buddy Punch helps ensure that employees report their hours honestly through a variety of features, such as Geofencing, which geographically limits where employees can punch in and out from (e.g., only within 500 feet of your business location). You can also choose to activate IP Address Locking, which limits employee punches to a specific Wi-Fi network or device. In addition, our online time clock for small business can help prevent buddy punching through features like Facial Recognition Punching, Photos on Punch, and more.

  2. Countless hours saved on payroll. Buddy Punch offers features that allow for a faster and more accurate payroll process. Eliminate employee wage calculation errors through On-Demand Payroll Reports, bypass cumbersome manual data entry with Payroll Provider Integrations, handle in-app time off requests and avoid a traditionally inefficient communication process with Time Off Tracking, easily manage direct deposits and tax filings with Buddy Punch Payroll, and more.

At the end of this post, we also included features and reviews of five other online time clock software for small businesses, to help better inform your research.

Best Online Time Clock Software for Small Business

  1. Buddy Punch 
  2. OnTheClock
  3. Connecteam
  4. Sling
  5. Hubstaff
  6. Clockify

1. Buddy Punch

High-Level Overview: How Our Online Time Clock Software for Small Business Works

At a very high level, here’s how Buddy Punch works.

1. Employees can easily punch in and out either via our mobile app (available for iPhone and Android), tablet, or computer.

Buddy Punch

2. Buddy Punch tracks and calculates each employee’s regular hours, time off (paid and unpaid), overtime, and more. You can view all pertinent reports at any time and export them as a PDF or Excel spreadsheet. This saves you valuable time each month and helps to avoid manual calculation errors.

Payroll spreadsheet

Increase Employee Accountability

There are several employee accountability features offered through Buddy Punch, all of which are turned off by default and can be utilized by your business based on your particular needs.

Note: We are always available to answer any questions via live chat. You can also learn more through a free trial or by requesting a one-on-one demo call.

Geofencing

Enter geofence location coordinates.

Geofencing is used to designate a particular radius (e.g., 500 feet within your business address), and prevents anyone from punching in outside of this assigned area.

If an employee were to attempt to punch in outside the geofence, they would receive a message stating, “You are not within the assigned Geofence”, and be prompted to try again at the correct location:

Geofence error message.

This gives you peace of mind and ensures employees are physically at the right location when punching in and out.

IP Address Locking

IP address lock.

With IP Address Locking, if your business uses one central Wi-Fi network, you can limit employee punches to only that particular network.

Additionally, you may choose to restrict punches to a specific device used at your business location, such as a central tablet or computer.

Photos on Punch 

Photo on punch feature.

A great way for small businesses to prevent buddy punching is through our Photos on Punch feature, whereby employees are required to take a selfie photo whenever they punch in and out.

As an administrator, you can then easily review and verify these photos via our dashboard:

Photos in payroll spreadsheet.

More Accountability Features to Explore

We’ve covered just a few of Buddy Punch’s employee accountability features, but we have even more to offer, including: GPS Tracking, Facial Recognition Punching, PIN Punching, Punch Limiting Rules, and more.

Note: We’ve helped many small businesses become familiarized with Buddy Punch (and identify the features that are best suited for them) via live one-on-one demo call. We also invite you to sign up for a free trial run.

How to Save Time on Payroll with Buddy Punch

Buddy Punch can help you save time on payroll via several features and functionalities:

Payroll Reports on Demand 

Payroll spreadsheet.

As we’ve mentioned, Buddy Punch tracks and calculates each employee’s regular hours, time off (paid and unpaid), overtime, and more. You can view all pertinent reports at any time and export them as a PDF or Excel spreadsheet. This saves you valuable time each month and helps to avoid manual calculation errors.

Payroll Provider Integrations

Payroll software integrations.

Integrating Buddy Punch with your payroll provider eliminates the need for manual transfer of employee hours (which is notoriously tedious and time consuming).  

Setting up a payroll provider integration is fast and easy, and we offer step-by-step instructions for:

Buddy Punch Payroll

Auto payroll feature.

With Buddy Punch, you no longer need to depend on two separate platforms for time-tracking and payroll management, and instead you can find everything you need integrated within our application.

As a brief overview:

Step 1: Using the payroll dashboard, you can quickly review any payroll information relevant to your business, such as employee hours, time off, each employee’s gross and net pay and preferred payment method, and more.

Payroll summary dashboard.

Step 2: After reviewing the information, you can click on “Submit Payroll” and let Buddy Punch take care of the rest. More specifically, we will:

  • Send direct deposits to employees.

  • Handle everything that pertains to state and federal payroll taxes, such as filing and payment.

  • Provide pay stubs that employees can easily access via an intuitive self-service process (thus freeing up your time for other tasks).

  • And more.

Visit this page for more details on how Buddy Punch Payroll works.

Time Off Tracking

PTO summary dashboard.

Employees can easily send time off requests within our app. Then, administrators can optionally approve or decline these requests. Summaries of all time off hours (paid and unpaid) are easily exportable as a CSV, Excel, or PDF file.

If you’re interested to learn more about Buddy Punch’s time off tracking features, see this page.

Accruals

Custom accrual rules.

Learn how to easily create time off accrual rules using Buddy Punch with this video and/or help doc article.

Explore Additional Features

Buddy Punch has plenty more to offer which was not yet covered in this post, and you can explore all of our features here, some of which include:

Online Reviews

As of this writing date, Buddy Punch has 740 reviews and 4.8 out of 5 stars on Capterra, a popular software review platform.

Buddy Punch received 4.8 out of 5 stars on Capterra.

As a small business owner, it’s vital to choose an online time clock software that:

  1. Is intuitive and easy for employers and employees to use

  2. Offers excellent customer service (e.g., quick response time and knowledgeable representatives).

Below are reviews from small business owners that speak to these two areas:

“Was looking for an app that helped manage employee punching in/out for small businesses and did a bunch of trials before finding Buddy Punch. The other apps that I found were often not what I was looking for or did not have a focus on employee punch-in/outs. Found Buddy Punch and it does exactly what I need it to. The UI is very well designed, the administrator makes employee accounts and employees just go to the website, log in, and push the big green button. They then log in again to punch out but the big green button will be a big red button this time. Very simple, very easy, does employee punch-ins, does it well. Also got an IP-Lock feature so employees can only punch in on-site. There are some other features like wage calculations based on punch-in time, overtime stuff, and other things that I don’t use but they seemed pretty useful if I ever choose to use them.”

Click here to read the full review.

“Small business lifesaver…This product was easy to use from day one and entering the employees took no time at all. Everything is easily accessible and you can check on employees to be sure they have arrived on time to their jobs.”

Click here to read the full review.

“Buddy Punch has all the features we need (manual punching, job coding, PTO requests, etc.) plus a simple and user-friendly experience. All the other applications we looked at were either way too robust for our small non-profit or didn’t offer one of the key features we needed.”

Click here to read the full review.

“I am very satisfied with Buddy Punch. The software is very user friendly. If you contact customer service with an issue, they fix it immediately. They’ll even take your suggestions into consideration. I’ve never had an issue with this company. I highly recommend them.”

Click here to read the full review.

“Buddy Punch has been an amazing tool to have. Being a growing small business, it’s been seamless to integrate and has taken a huge workload from my plate. I like that employees have the option of clocking in and out remotely, and I have the accessibility to login anywhere.”

Click here to read the full review.

“I needed a simple time keeping app where I could customize things to suit each employee and I found it… If I have any questions I just use the messaging center and someone is always quick to respond and they have always been able to solve the problem or clarify something I may not have understood.”

Click here to read the full review.

“Buddy Punch has saved me time and money and more importantly workers can’t say their hours are not correct. It is very easy to use for me and my employees. The GPS stamp showing where they punch in/out is a great tool. I would recommend this program to everyone.”

Click here to read the full review.

“Buddy Punch is easy to use, and takes the hassle out of keeping track of hours worked. Before we used this software, we were using a spreadsheet and it was a mess!”

Click here to read the full review.

View all of Buddy Punch’s Capterra reviews here.

Sign Up for a Free Trial and/or Book a Demo Call

If you feel that our online time clock software is a good fit for your small business, we invite you to:

2. OnTheClock

OnTheClock offers many features and functionality that are useful for small businesses, such as:

It’s a great online time clock for small business. As of the writing date, OnTheClock has 520 reviews and 4.7 out of 5 stars on Capterra.

“Works well for our small company with 3 employees. We use the computer for log in and log out. We have not tried the Mobile or GPS features.”

Click here to read the full review.

3. Connecteam

Connecteam offers many features and functionalities that are useful for small businesses, such as:

It’s one of the best online time clocks for small business. As of this writing date, Connecteam has 207 reviews and 4.8 out of 5 stars on Capterra.

“The Connecteam platform has been a perfect addition to our small business that is headed for rapid growth.”

Click here to read the full review. 

4. Sling

Sling offers many features and functionalities that are useful for small businesses, such as:

It’s a great online employee time clock for small businesses. As of this writing date, Sling has 115 reviews and 4.6 out of 5 stars on Capterra.

“It’s a great product and certainly deserving of a monthly cost affordable to small business as well as large corporations.”

Click here to read the full review. 

5. Hubstaff

Hubstaff offers many features and functionalities that are useful for small businesses, such as:

It’s a fantastic small business online time clock app. As of this writing date, Hubstaff has 1302 reviews and 4.6 out of 5 stars on Capterra.

“Hubstaff is an awesome tool for a small business… Since implementing it we’ve had every employee log in daily to keep track of their time and screen activity whether in the office or at home. No issues with it and we’ve been using it for well over a year now.”

Click here to read the full review.

6. Clockify

Clockify offers many features and functionalities that are useful for small businesses, such as:

It’s a great online time clock software for small business. As of this writing date, Clockify has 4327 reviews and 4.7 out of 5 stars on Capterra.

“My overall experience is excellent and it’s a tool I have recommended to all business owners even at the initial stage when it’s a one person business.”

Click here to read the full review.

Sign Up for a Free Trial and/or Book a Demo Call

If you feel that our online time clock software is a good fit for your small business, we invite you to:

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